


I’m An Engine Driver

by audreycritter



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batdad, Cars, Fluff, Gen, Young!Jason, jason is Smol and a little bitter, no profreading we die like mne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-15 07:32:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12316611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: A bit of father-son fluff concerning the shiny cars in the massive Wayne Manor garage, and a boy who really likes said fast cars.Even if he doesn’t have his license yet.





	I’m An Engine Driver

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cerusee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerusee/gifts).



> After hearing via NYCC that Bruce Wayne’s car for the film had to be custom-built for Ben Affleck’s height, I decided I liked that idea being canon, haha.
> 
> Title from The Decemberist’s song.

The day was winding down toward a late dinner and then patrol, and the setting sun found Bruce Wayne in front of a stack of paperwork. He was still in pajamas from a post-work nap, rubbing sleep from his eyes and sipping coffee, trying to focus on the patent acquisition documents he needed to review and sign. If he got through enough of them, there were League files to update remotely before dinner, and then casework to preview before patrol and…

He yawned and stretched a leg out, then drained half of the coffee.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw motion, and he pulled his attention from the papers long enough to watch Jason Todd go by the open study door with an armload of thick books.

He’d realized pretty early on that Jason was not Dick, and vice versa, and he tried— really, he did— to not directly compare them. But it _was_ nice to know he didn’t need to hound Jason about homework the way—

Bruce blinked at the papers.

Those…had not looked like school books. A dictionary, yes, but also a hardbound set of something.

He frowned at his coffee and waited, listening.

It was useless. The Manor was too big for noise to travel well, and knowing if anyone else was home had always been more a thing of instinct or intuition. But it felt _quiet_ in a way that stirred suspicion. It was the kind of quiet the house _felt_ when Dick had been preparing to leap from the roof into the pool, when Jason had been trying to build a lamp into his bed frame…

The kind of quiet that Bruce had quickly learned meant _trouble_ , and mess, and possibly (probably) a trip downstairs to the Cave’s medbay for sutures or burn cream.

The papers waiting for his signature got a rueful glance as he stood and left the study. He went down the hall, ducking his head into various rooms, hoping he’d find Jason just reading or with Alfred after all.

But Alfred was alone in the kitchen with marinating salmon filets.

“Jay?” Bruce asked, watching the rapid transition from whole to diced onions under Alfred’s blur of a knife.

“Garage, I do believe,” Alfred answered promptly, without slowing. “Earlier, he mentioned his plan to work on the scrap engine.”

“Hm.” Bruce slipped a cookie off the tray on the counter to Alfred’s back and headed toward the garage before he was forced to hear Alfred’s rebuke.

The garage was a huge room with polished concrete floors and rows of cars; it was also full of the same ominous quiet Bruce had felt upstairs. The workbench in the far back, where an old spare engine had been set aside for Jason to tinker with, was covered with gutted parts but absent a teenage boy.

Bruce scanned the room and spotted a tousled head through a windshield, bent over the steering wheel of a Aston Martin Vanquish.

_Gotcha._

He circled around the back of the line of cars and kept his steps quiet; it was easy considering he was still in house slippers. When he was beside the car, he opened the passenger door and leaned down in the same quick motion.

“Shit!” Jason screeched, jumping about a foot in the air. The teen clutched the steering wheel with two white-knuckled hands and caught his breath. He was perched on a Tetris-like arrangement of thick books and with the seat pulled all the way forward, his feet still fell inches short of even dusting the pedals.

Bruce took the passenger seat and closed the door.

“Hi,” Jason said stiffly, an embarrassed smile dimpling his cheeks, his eyes locked on the windshield. He hadn’t let go of the wheel. “How, uh, are you.”

“I’m fine,” Bruce said mildly. “Care to tell me where we’re going?”

“Nowhere,” Jason said, flexing his fingers around the black leather wheel.

“I’d recommend opening a garage door first,” Bruce said. “And maybe getting your license.”

“I wasn’t,” Jason said, and then paused. “I’m not…I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“Hmm.”

“I wasn’t!” Jason pounded a hand on the wheel and turned to Bruce, finally looking at him with a mixture of defensive anger and frustration. “I just wanted to see if I could reach the fucki– the fricking gas pedal.”

“Might want to reach the brake, too,” Bruce suggested. “Webster’s is more useful for school.”

“Well, I wouldn’t _need_ all these if _somebody_ wasn’t freakishly tall. You know the seat barely moves forward?”

“Why would it need to move forward.”

Jason gave him a flat glare.

“It’s my car,” Bruce said. “It was built for me. Why would it need to move forward.”

“Maybe somebody else would want to drive it someday,” Jason sulked. He hunched down in the seat, which looked uncomfortable because his spine pressed against a book edge that way, and crossed his arms.

“Maybe somebody else is going to learn to drive in Dick’s old car.”

The abject horror on Jason’s face was so sudden that Bruce had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from laughing.

“No! No, B, _please_.”

They looked in unison toward the ordinary, slightly dinged up navy blue SUV in the far back corner. Dick had left it, Bruce was pretty sure as a slap in the face, the same week he’d gone out and bought the motorcycle with electric blue detailing. He’d since added another more sedate coupe, but they’d never discussed the abandoned SUV.

“It’s a safe car,” Bruce said.

Jason rolled his eyes and sank his face into his hands. “Dick would kill me,” he muttered through his palms.

“He wouldn’t. He doesn’t even like it.”

“I don’t like it,” Jason said, peering through his fingers at the offending SUV. “It’s boring. And you have _so many_ better cars.”

“Cars I would like to keep in one piece,” Bruce countered. “Almost as much as I want to keep you in one piece.”

“Br _uce_ ,” Jason whined, squirming. “Don’t be such an old man. C’mon. Isn’t there something not giant-sized I could drive?”

“Alfred’s cars are Alfred’s. And the towncar and limo are for business and off-limits.”

“Ugh,” Jason exhaled, dropping his head with a thunk on the steering wheel. “Why are you so boring all of a sudden.”

“It’s my job,” Bruce said easily. “And you’ve got almost two years. That’s time to grow.”

“What if I don’t? What if even the Explorer is too big?”

“Then we’ll get you something else,” Bruce said, staring at the Explorer again. He’d feared for his life in that car, more than once. He kept his gaze on it when he calmly added, “and a booster seat.”

“You’re the worst,” Jason mumbled.

“I try. What made you pick the Aston Martin?”

“I knew I’d be grounded for a month if it was the Bugatti.” Jason said listlessly, lifting his head and sighing. It sounded a little more dramatic than was probably necessary, but, considering the Bugatti, Bruce felt like he probably understood.

“Want to go for a drive before dinner?” Bruce offered after a moment of silence. Jason had used the opportunity to sigh heavily, and pointedly, one more time. Now, though, his face lit up and he straightened as if jerked up by a string.

“Really?” Jason asked, his eyes bright.

Bruce smirked and ruffled his hair. “I’m driving, Jay-lad.”

“Aw.” Jason sagged again, deflated, and nodded glumly. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Take your pick,” Bruce said, opening the door. “The Bentley?”

“The Continental?” Jason asked in return, lips twisting in mild disgust.

“What’s wrong with it?” Bruce asked, leaning back down to look at Jason, who was still perched on the books on the driver’s seat. “It’s a good car.”

“It’s an old man car,” Jason grumbled, climbing out. “I don’t know why you like it so much. Can we take the Regera?”

“I don’t know. I might be too old.” Bruce was already taking the keys out of the drawer, where they were lined up in a labeled tray.

“Redeem yourself now,” Jason said impishly. Bruce turned just as Jason launched himself onto his back and draped his arms limply over Bruce’s shoulders. “Prove me wrong, old man.”

Bruce piggy-backed him to the Koenigsegg and Jason slipped off his back and vaulted over the car. It wasn’t quite the acrobatic grace and added flip Dick would have shown off with, but it was fast and cleared the hood by several inches. Jason was buckled before Bruce was even settled all the way in the driver’s seat.

“Also,” Jason said, as the nearest garage door slid up, and Bruce started the engine. “Why don’t you get some other colors? No offense, but the black and gray are a bit overkill. Some green would go a long way.”

“Noted,” Bruce said, pulling out of the garage.

They were going faster than either of them would admit to Alfred before the minute was out.

**Five years later.**

Bruce was replying to emails from his phone over breakfast he wasn’t really eating. Damian was finishing off a bowl of cereal, a childishly sugary thing that reminded him of Dick, when the roar of an engine caught their attention.

Damian was at the window in a second and Bruce followed, a bit more slowly. He looked over Damian’s head as the Bugatti tore out of the garage and down the lane right past the window.

“That was Todd,” Damian said sharply, turning. Bruce caught him with a hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Let him go,” Bruce said, glancing down at his phone again. He scrolled through contacts. “He’ll bring it back.”

“Tt,” Damian said, going to resume eating the cereal. It looked like it had marshmallows in it and Bruce suspected he might actually not hate it himself.

He typed out the text before going back to his emails.

_< All you had to do was ask.>_

The reply dropped down in notifications less than a minute later.

_< You would have said no to the paint job I’m getting, old man.>_


End file.
